Category: Uncategorized

pet peeve of the day: people who talk into their cell phones like walkie talkies, alternating between holding it in front of their mouth to talk and then touching it to their ears to listen, especially when driving.

although this drives me up the fucking wall, i am aware that this is partly irrational, because it really only affects me in a minor way, and only if that person is talking extra loudly as a result of their habit. but for some reason it goes way beyond that for me, to the point where whenever i see anyone doing this i cringe and judge the person in question as a total douchebag.

where does this hostility come from? what am i assuming about these people based on this habit that instills me with such skin-crawling annoyance?

i think it’s partly that i have no idea WHY someone would use their phone in this way, as if cellular device designers are incapable of knowing how to make a microphone that can actually pick up your voice while the handset is held to your ear as it should be. this isn’t mayberry, your phone doesn’t need a separate mouthpiece and earphone, i’m fairly sure motorola and samsung have some clue what they’re doing people. if you can believe it, this drives me even MORE crazy than the weird bluetooth/star-trek people, or the ones with wires in their ears that insist on holding the little mic up to their mouths, thus defeating the purpose of the ‘hands free’ earpiece. (but i digress…)

the second part i think is more assumptive regarding the character of the people i’ve seen most often doing this, and what their phone usage tells me about them. in my mind, holding the phone out in front of your mouth, earpiece miles from your face, screams “i am talking, and you are going to listen to me, and i don’t care what you say”, with only cursory returns of the phone back to the ear to make SURE that the person on the other end heard what you’re saying and to see how they react. it seems so self-centered and despicable, and it falls so nicely in with stereotypes i have for the people i see doing this most: namely overdressed hollywood girls in huge overpriced SUV’s, middle-aged businessguy tools driving luxury cars, or blinged-out dudes with XXL clothes that wear sunglasses indoors. the common denominator, to me, is the ‘look at me (and also LISTEN to me), goddammit’ attitude that is utterly counter to everything that i appreciate in a person. please, for the love of god, hold the phone like a real person and have a conversation like a human being.

……

wow, that went on even longer than i thought…hadn’t been writing enough lately, so i decided to take a mental rant i went off on earlier today in the car and transcribe it here for fun. sorry if you’re one of these people and you’re afraid of me now, and please do explain yourself in the comments so i can calm my rage.

good things heading into the weekend. for one, the comments are back. i like comments. i missed them and it’s good to see them return. especially without any action required on my part.

i also played tennis twice this week, after having not picked up a racquet in at least two years. it felt pretty good. it would feel better if i knew of a nearby place to get my racquet re-gripped, because as is i finish playing and have a lot of sticky black decaying rubber gunk on my right hand. also, i’ve found while trying to google such a place that i often misspell racquet without the ‘c’. how embarrassing.

other than that, i’ve mostly spent my evenings this week playing hotel dusk on the new DS. it showed up monday, even earlier than expected, and i’ve spent over thirty hours playing since then according to the game clock. wow, that’s a lot. but it’s so addicting, and i want so badly to see what happens next, i can’t stop. mainly because it’s more like an interactive detective novel, which has a surprisingly good story for a video game. i’m really hoping this far in it doesn’t have a terrible and cheesy conclusion that makes me regret all the hours i’ve logged so far. i guess if nothing else, it’s been a great distraction from having to wait around for dr. xbox to fix my 360. according to the ups site, it’s still on the way to texas, so it’s gonna be a while.

and to further chronicle my nerdy week, i finished season two of battlestar galactica and let me just say that i was not pleased with how that ended. i won’t go into spoiler-filled details, but come on writers. i think you could have done better.

oh! and i need a new payday song, i think i forgot last time. i’m sure if i’d been to the record store recently, it would be something off the new arcade fire album, but tonight should be the night for that. instead we’ll go with the current favorite record of 07, a little peter bjorn and john. enjoy a little trip to amsterdam and whistle along with me.

300 – 4 stars

this movie hardly needs or deserves reviewing. my roommate and i saw it separately, and had very similar reactions afterward — mainly that you get almost exactly what you were expecting, and exactly what all their marketing promised.

at no point in any advertising i’ve seen did they attempt to make this out as an epic story, only an epic battle, and that’s precisely what this movie is. i guess i could say *spoiler warning*, but since it’s also based loosely on historic events (minus the monsters of course), this shouldn’t come entirely as a surprise: the plot, at it’s base, is: lots of people are coming to attack. for political reasons, only 300 guys go out to defend the city. they do a hell of a job for a couple days before going out in a blaze of glory, inspiring the full army to take up the fight right behind them. aside from a few traitors and cowards, that’s pretty much it.

but after watching it, i can’t say i had any problem with that. if you like violent battle scenes or bloody graphic novels, both of which i quite enjoy, then you’ll have a great time watching the two hours of slicing, stabbing, beating, beheading, impaling goodness that is 300. if, say, you need every movie to have a complex plot, major character development, or less than a few hundred gallons of blood spilled or splattered, than you won’t be surprised either to find that 300 is not for you.

far from a condemnation, i actually believe that’s where this movie succeeded best: it made no claims it didn’t deliver, never tried to trick anyone into seeing it by pretending to be what it wasn’t, and for those who wanted what it had to offer, the film served it up beautifully and unabashedly. bravo, 300. bravo.

if you’ve been dying to leave comments on my last few posts for the past week or so, i know the comment service is busted at the moment, and i apologize. do feel free to email any pressing thoughts to the address under my photo in the upper right. i’ve been tempted in this extended downtime to switch providers completely, or go to the standard blogger ones, but those solutions all have their drawbacks as well. on top of the fact that i’d lose all my old comments, they don’t have the right customization options or require logins that i don’t want you to have to sign up for, etc.

things appear to be closer to a solution though over at their site, so my fingers are crossed that all will be well in another couple days. so save those brilliant words of wisdom or clever quips for just a bit longer.

my weekend was even more jam-packed than usual. out to dinner both friday and saturday nights. then yesterday was a marathon of activities, going from playing tennis with dan, to going to see 300 (also with dan), to a mountain goats show with jessica (which dan also went to), almost one after the other. it was a very good and very dan day.

the show was sold out at the el rey, which is surprising for the ol’ goats i’ve seen in much smaller places like spaceland, the echo, and the troubadour. so it was a bit hotter and louder than i’m used to. but the set was full of surprises as usual, since i’m sure it’d border on impossible to guess what’ll get played out of his massive catalog at any performance. quite a bit off the new album and the sunset tree, after all this was the ‘get lonely tour’, but some rarely-played cuts from tallahassee and farther back as well.

the real surprise was that the whole set featured a drummer along with the standard mr. peter hughes on bass, and that for the second half of the set john even went electric! it was a really nice shake-up from past shows i’ve seen, especially after him saying last year how he’s getting more into songs that don’t have as much ‘hollering’, as he calls it. so some major rocking came down from that stage, and a high point for me was probably an electrified ‘going to georgia’ which was blazing hot. totally not what i expected out of the night but lots of fun as always.

this week now i’m just looking forward to the arrival of a stopgap measure i took to make up for my xbox’s extended vacation (and the little reward i decided i deserved for getting a promotion), my new nintendo DS. i want to play a video game where i’m an animated japanese lawyer, dangit!

just off my big post of ‘look at all the good news i’ve got, boy my life is great!’, my (luckily) less-than-90-day-old xbox 360 gave me the dreaded RING OF DEATH.

apparently this problem has been pretty prevalent, which is a shame because it’s a really fun piece of hardware, whose reputation is now tarnished with this major inconvenience. like i said, i’m lucky i’m within my warranty period and get a free repair & shipping ticket, but all the same it’s pretty sad i’ll have to go without my friendly white game box for something like 3 weeks.

looks like i’ll have to spend this weekend doing lame stuff like reading or going outdoors or having conversations with friends. UGH.

so one of the cleverest sites/blogs i’ve ever come across in my web travels, indexed, has apparently recently signed a book deal. very well deserved, because she is essentially brilliant and deserves both money and fame — i highly recommend you give the site a visit for some quick laughs and insight.

but also, it’s another one of those times that forces lowly personal diarists like myself to think, “do i have more creativity in me than i put into my own web pursuits? could i do something bigger and possibly more rewarding (and profitable) if i were to just focus and refine my creative energies?”

the answer of course being that i’d like to think yes, probably, but i will continue to believe i can get around to that later.

so there’s been a big streak of good news lately that i’ve kept more or less quiet about until things were more cemented, but i think it’s all set by now and i can lift the embargo.

one, jessica and i are going to tokyo, japan for a vacation in the fall. that’s right, i said TOKYO. it’s so far and so foreign, i am nervously excited even though the trip is more than half a year away. and the thought of more vacations with my wonderful girl is always a good one.

also, i’ve recently been promoted. more good news, very unexpected, and also very exciting. luckily i really love my job, and it helps to know that apparently i am doing okay at it as well. not only did i shed the ‘junior’ that preceded my title formerly, finally leaving all diminutive prefixes behind after almost four years as a professional, but i also anticipate hitting a milestone mark with the accompanying raise that will go a loooooong way toward retiring my lingering debts. all in all, a great development so early in the year.

and of course the new ping pong table on our roof doesn’t hurt. and it’s getting to be spring not winter. and i took over temporary possession of a full-sized weber grill from stacy, who was holding it for our friend zach who moved away, and who was moving herself to an apartment without a yard. it’s almost too much good news to handle.

it’s easier, though, with drinks in hand, so the work crew headed out last night to celebrate. see, i wasn’t the only one who got a promotion, so the whole group had some celebrating to do. fun times at the cozy inn that lasted many more hours and several more beers than i thought it would, the only drawback being that i stayed out too late to meet up with jessica afterward. well, and the somewhat cloudy state of my brain this morning. it’s great having such a fun team of people to work with though, those are the nights that confirm why i love this place.

so as not to end on a sappy note like that though, and instead on a nerdy one much more in line with the overall tone of this blog, i have to gush briefly about a new game i downloaded to my xbox called alien hominid. if you’ve ever played the classic game contra on NES back in the day, it’s like that only in HD, with hand-drawn 2D animation that looks way cooler, it’s way more funny, much harder, and more fun to play. it’s crazy hard just to beat a level but luckily once you clear one you can start fresh from the next one anytime. and to top it all off, you get to play as this cute little guy and blast things with laser guns and chomp people’s heads off. very much recommended if you’ve got the 360 and ten spare bucks; it’s so addicting i even fired it up to play a bit last night after getting home as late as i did.

sure i meant to do this in january, but oscar-time is as good a time as any to look back at best films from last year, right? i was glad to see the departed win so many awards, especially scorsese. of course, i couldn’t bring myself to actually watch the degeneres-hosted broadcast because of my total hatred of her as a comedian, but the news was mostly good news once i checked the results. anyway, here are my favorites…

	movies i enjoyed most in 2006
as usual, there are a few big ones i missed, like babel and some of the more indie and/or girly ones like the queen or little children. some i caught late (i even had to include one i saw in january of ’07 because looking back, i saw so few great movies last year), and some i saw and loved but for all their greatness weren’t on the same level as the ones here — like inconvenient truth. children of men in particular, which i just finally saw this week, was an outstanding-looking and intense movie, but just doesn’t seem like something i’d be drawn to time after time. that’s what i really look for in a favorite: just like a good album, i keep wanting to come back to it over and over.
	#7: casino royale
after having no interest whatsoever in the last few brosnan bond movies, the promise of a darker, formative version of the bond character was a big one after watching all those connery movies on tbs with my dad as a kid, and boy did they not disappoint. this was like a grown-up’s bond movie without losing what made it fun, and made me believe in the franchise again.
	#6: the prestige
a lot of people weren’t as excited about this as i was, but i love the fact that it took me and jessica a whole car ride home and then some to finish arguing over exactly how much we perceived wrongly as we watched, or which characters knew what at what time in the film after the ‘twist ending’. i know lots of people are weary of those after the past few years of movies, but this one went so deep that for me you can never really know what exactly you might have seen, and that makes it a more meaningful film and not just a cheap trick. you know, like good magic (see how i did that right there?). plus, hugh jackman and christian bale are a couple of the best male actors around and they both owned this film.
	#5: pan’s labyrinth
kind of cheating here since i saw this in january, but since it won some oscars this weekend i’ll include it under a technicality. actually less bizarre than i was expecting, but much more emotionally powerful. i just wanted to hug that little girl so many times, she was so cute and still so brave in the face of such terrible circumstances. great ending as well. plus: foreign language picks get me culture-points!
	#4: thank you for smoking
i think the title and subject made this destined to only ever be a mild success, but all in all it was a really quick-witted and enjoyable comedy much more than it was any sort of political or cultural statement. aaron eckhart almost always kicks ass too. (tangent: and did you hear he’s probably playing harvey dent (the nascent two-face) in the next batman? HOLY SHIT, christian bale and aaron eckhart together are going to put that at my number one for ’08 for sure).
	#3: v for vendetta
take an alan moore comic and actually translate it decently to film and you’ve already won my heart. keep the verbose language and you might confuse some, but surely delight yours truly. throw in some natalie portman, some explosions, swordfigting, and political intrigue and jesus, either you’re trying to seduce me or you just got a damn smart and satisfying action movie.
	#2: brick
noir dialogue mixed with high school drama? sign me up. doesn’t hurt when it looks this good either. maybe i have a weakness for any mystery where the characters talk so fast you can barely keep up, but this earned major points for sheer creativity then totally delivered a solid, well-acted story for the win.
	#1: the departed
umm, obvious much? i won’t even go into it but this one has classic written all over it. i mostly just want to see it again so i can start guessing which lines will go down in quotable movie history, since a film this epic and exciting and gut-wrenching can’t help but beat out just about anything else in the last several years, let alone the generally weak 2006.
honorable mentions…
&nbsp	best netflix movies i rented this year:
i also saw 51 netflix movies last year on dvd (more if you count each disc of a TV series separately), which is a decent average of at least one a week. lots of great stuff, in fact i rarely rent something i don’t like at all, which is a testament to the netflix system and the friends i get recommendations from. these are the ones i absolutely loved and recommend with the most enthusiasm: freaks & geeks: probably second only to my so-called life as best and most accurate drama depicting life as a high school kid. deadwood: so glad i finally caught up on this, the dialogue is spectacular. hard boiled: best action movie i’ve seen in ages, might even rival die hard if it were in english. maybe. wordplay: totally tickled the nerd in me, and well put together for such a geeky topic. kiss kiss, bang bang: fun noir-comedy i could watch over and over. the good, the bad, and the ugly: any time a 3 hour movie doesn’t feel like one, it must be amazing. ichi the killer: messed up, but so worth it if you’re not squeamish.

the week has turned out extremely well. first and foremost, gino and josh, roommate and friend respectively, impulsively went out and bought a ping pong table this weekend, which now resides on the roof patio of our apartment building. so guess what we’ve been doing during most of our free daylight hours — especially the extra ones we got for president’s day. i’m already better than i was saturday when they bought it and this is sure to provide fun for months to come. jealous? just come over and play with us, doubles is fun too.

also, work has been going really well. the first phase of a project i’ve been working on for a few weeks culminated in a big presentation that went extremely well. i’m really excited to know i didn’t screw up, added valuable thinking, and didn’t choke when it came time to actually discuss our ideas with clients. so yesterday i felt kinda badass.

of course, having stayed at work until 11:30 the night before and getting up at 5:30 to catch a plane for the meeting, i also felt kinda exhausted. so i spent almost the whole night watching tv (after ping pong of course), and holy crap, discovery channel shows in HD about space exploration are unbelievable. this week’s heroes was good too.

all in all, quite content with this shortened week.

NEW MAXIMO PARK! holy crap holy crap holy crap. i’ve been looking forward to this for months and regularly checking back for updates on when the album will be out. so far what i know is that their first single is around (out now? coming soon? not quite sure), having heard half of it last night on kcrw. AND, that the album is coming out april 2nd (just in the UK? here too? also not sure). of course, i bolted to the internet as soon as i could to track it down and quell my lust for hyper fun brit rock.

so i’m very very pleased to be able to share our velocity as this week’s pay day song. i hope you enjoy this as much as i’m going to be as it plays every 20 minutes or so over my stereo for the next week.